Iran Next, by way of Charleston?

In the summer of 2002 .
. . I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He . . .
told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend
-- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the
Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in
what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined
as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your
judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and
murmured something about enlightenment principles and
empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world
really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now,
and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're
studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll
act again, creating other new realities, which you can study
too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's
actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study
what we do.''- "Without a Doubt," Ron Suskind, New York
Times Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004

Last
January an article appeared in the New Yorker by noted
investigative journalist Seymour Hirsch. In his article, "The Coming Wars," Hirsch quotes a
intelligence official as saying:

"This is
a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The
Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone,"
the former high-level intelligence official told me. "Next,
we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war
and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is
the last hurrah-we've got four years, and want to come out
of this saying we won the war on
terrorism."

Hirsch
continues:

The hawks in the
Administration believe that it will soon become clear that
the Europeans' negotiated approach cannot succeed, and that
at that time the Administration will act. "We're not dealing
with a set of National Security Council option papers here,"
the former high-level intelligence official told me.
"They've already passed that wicket. It's not if we're going
to do anything against Iran. They're doing
it."

Hirsch's report about the war on
Iran was confirmed elsewhere. For example, Scott Ritter, the
former Marine officer and head weapons inspector in Iraq
(ridiculed in the US media for insisting in 2002 that there
were no Iraqi WMD), reports in "Sleepwalking to Disaster in Iran " that
a deadline of June, 2005 had been established for the
invasion. The Israelis were concerned that after the Iraqis
received nuclear reactor fuel from the Russians, as
scheduled for June, that there would be no stopping their
progress toward nuclear weapons.

In another article ("The US War with Iran has Already
Begun"), Ritter reports that, as in Iraq, hostile
actions against Iran were begun far in advance of any public
decision for war. Ritter states that, "The reality is that
the US war with Iran has already begun. As we speak,
American over flights of Iranian soil are taking place,
using pilotless drones and other, more sophisticated,
capabilities." In addition to this, the US currently has
special operations forces as well as MEK operatives active
in Iran. (The MEK previously worked for Saddam Hussein and
is reportedly skilled in bomb assassinations and on the
State Department list of banned terrorist organizations.)
Also, in preparation for an attack, the US is constructing
military facilities in Azerbaijan just to the north of Iran.
And a Wayne Madsen Report appearing on August
10 states that the "U.S. [is] prepared to grab Iran's
southwestern majority Arab and oil-rich province after
saturation bombing of Iranian nuclear, chemical, and
command, control, communications & intelligence (C3I)
targets. According to sources within the German Federal
Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst - BND), the
Bush administration has drawn up plans to hit Iran's
nuclear, other WMD, and military sites with heavy saturation
bombing using bunker buster bombs and tactical nuclear
weapons. . . . The German intelligence comes from classified
briefings provided by elements within the CIA that are
concerned the neocons in the Bush administration will, in
attacking Iran, set off a chain of events that will lead to
world war."

However, despite all these intense
preparations, June has come and gone without an invasion or
major bombing campaign. The apparent holdup might not come
as a surprise. With Cindy Sheehan on the front page,
political and military conditions that were favorable after
9-11 don't presently permit starting another war, certainly
not with troops for a land invasion. There would be massive
public opposition and further erosion of Bush's standing in
opinion polls. With current manpower shortages and all
available forces committed in Iraq, our military does not
have the troops. Diplomatically, it would be very difficult
because the WMD rationale is not supported by facts (Iran Is Judged 10 Years From Nuclear
Bomb, reports an article in the Washington Post based on
a leaked CIA National Intelligence Estimate) and the
American public as well as world opinion has grown wary of
the war in Iraq and "fixed" intelligence. A potential route,
UN Security Council approval, would likely be impossible due
to a Russian veto. The Russians are, after all, constructing
the Iranian nuclear plant and they are vitally interested in
protecting their southern border and threatened, as is
China, with the US military presence there. The only other
legitimate causus belli would be for the US to be responding
to an Iranian attack. Despite these obstacles to war, the US
leadership is comprised of very powerful, secretive,
determined and resourceful men, they claim to be "history's
actors," and Bush remains committed to the Iranian mission.
Bush is quoted in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (August
14, 2005) as saying "'all options are on the table'. Bush,
in an interview on Israeli TV, said the United States and
Israel 'are united in our objective to make sure that Iran
does not have a weapon.'" Despite the obstacles faced by the
administration, they appear to be committed, but the only
legitimate pretext would be as a response to Iranian
aggression.

A possible vehicle for war against Iran came
to light recently. It might also address these obstacles,
but it is a contingent one. American Conservative magazine
published a report by former CIA officer Philip
Giraldi on August 1 stating that Cheney had directed
STRATCOM to prepare a plan to attack Iran with bombs,
including tactical nuclear weapons. Significantly, this
attack would come "in response to another 9/11-type
terrorist attack on the United States." Justin Logan of the
Cato Institute has the following comment on his personal
blog:

********

What Is the Plan
If There's Another 9/11?

According to Philip Giraldi,
writing in the new issue . . . of the American Conservative
< http://www.amconmag.com/> , it's to nuke
Iran:

The Pentagon, acting under
instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has
tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with
drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to
another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The
plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing
both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran
there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including
numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development
sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep
underground and could not be taken out by conventional
weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq,
the response is not conditional on Iran actually being
involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United
States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the
planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what
they are doing--that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked
nuclear attack--but no one is prepared to damage his career
by posing any objections.

Umm, could
the Emm Ess Emm [Main Street Media] pick this up? Especially
considering that several of the hardened suspected
nuclear-weapons-program development sites are in the middle
of Tehran? So does this mean we are going to nuke the
capital of Iran? And in this case would we parachute in
exiles to run the place afterward, or attempt a colonial
administration? What effect would the radioactive fallout
have on our decision?

**********

The
Bush administration's obstacles to initiating overt war are
resolved in the STRATCOM plan contingent on another
9/11-type attack. Another 9/11 event could create a "new
reality" with potentially immense public support for war;
and a bombing campaign wouldn't require troops unless one
were concerned about civil order and reconstruction in the
aftermath. (Which have not been addressed with even modest
success in either Afghanistan or Iraq.) The Bush
administration skillfully used the tragedy of 9/11 to create
public support for its policies as shown in the documentary,
"Hijacking Catastrophe " (1). Public
support would also take political pressure off the
administration, restore Bush's political capital, and it
might be possible to fire the special prosecutor in the Rove
case without a large public outcry as occurred when that was
done during Watergate. (The recent appointment of Bush's
Yale classmate and fellow Skull and Bonesman to oversee the
DOJ Special Prosecutor might facilitate this.) Still, the
STRATCOM plan is contingent. It requires a 9/11-type trigger
to create the "new reality," but, would Iran be foolish
enough to attack the US? Or, as the STRATCOM officers
feared, is Iran being "set up"?

In a seemingly unrelated
incident, Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, a four-star general was
abruptly relieved from his command this past week. In a
comment on the incident, the Washington Post reported that it was
"apparently the only such demotion of a four-star general in
modern times" and went on to state that "if there is a
justification, it had better involve national security at
the very highest level". There has been a lot of speculation
about the cause for Gen. Byrnes demotion because the stated
reason, adultery, seems insufficient as pointed out by the
Post when compared with crimes such as torture. Byrnes, then
separated and now divorced, was having an affair with a
female civilian and only months away from retirement.
However, he headed the Army's Training and Doctrine Command
which has a nuclear incident drill in process in Charleston,
SC. According to the NORTHCOM
website

, "Here's the scenario. A
seafaring vessel transporting a 10-kiloton nuclear warhead
makes its way into . . . Charleston, S.C. Terrorists aboard
the ship attempt to smuggle the warhead off the ship to
detonate it. Is this really a possibility?" Several
journalists have now implicated this planned nuclear drill
in Gen. Bynes demotion.

Other sources however have
offered a different explanation for Byrnes' dismissal which
ties in with the Bush administration's unpopular plan to
attack Iran and the staged nuclear attack in the US which
would provide the pretext to do
so.

According to reporter Greg
Szymanski, anonymous military sources said that Brynes was
the leader of a faction that was preparing to instigate a
coup against the neo-con hawks in an attempt to prevent
further global conflict.

Lehrman and others point out that military
exercises provide convenient staging grounds for false
terrorist attacks. For example, there were several air
defense exercises in process on the morning of September 11,
2001. Some contend that the diversion of defensive
resources, creation of false targets, and standing orders
for a drill -- do not shoot -- created unusual conditions
favorable to the successful attack. This line of reasoning
may have led to speculation among these journalists' sources
or others that led to identifying the drill in Charleston
with a 9/11-type event. However, the words "originally
intended" imply a more direct knowledge of a plan. Another
issue is the natural human resistance to believing that our
nation's leadership would even contemplate such a crime
against their own citizens. However, there is contrary
evidence in US history, and the notion that our leaders
would not do this may unfortunately be considered naive,
wishful thinking. The Northwoods Project, for example,
provides striking evidence of fake attacks and terror
incidents in the US being proposed by the Joint Chiefs of
Staff to justify an invasion of Cuba (2).

A lot depends on
these reports. Some, like the reported Charleston plot,
might be considered speculation. But the facts are that, for
some reason, a cover story is being used to justify Gen.
Byrnes' removal (3), we have evidence from multiple reliable
sources that an attack on Iran is planned and evidence that
the plan would require a 9-11-type event in the US. A new
9/11 would also remove the political obstacles to war and
restore Bush's popularity. Moreover, the Washington Post reports that the US
military has recently developed plans for martial law to be
implemented within the US also following a 9-11-type
incident. If such plans are being prepared only as a wise
precaution in the event of another 9/11, why are they being
prepared now, rather than back in late-2001 or 2002?

We
may be headed for a crisis more grave than Watergate if an
attack on US soil occurs. In addition to the immediate
losses domestically, the incident would apparently trigger a
nuclear attack on Iran and martial law domestically. As this
progressed, we could expect massive popular opposition and a
wave of actual terrorist attacks within the US. While most
other nations would not likely oppose us openly, some would
have both means and an incentive to covertly furnish
terrorist groups with WMD. Given president Bush's nature and
statements on Israeli TV, it looks as if this plan will go
forward with "history's actors" manufacturing a "new
reality" in the form of a new 9/11. Otherwise, within the
current political environment, his Iranian plan cannot be
executed. I am not alone in sensing that war is coming(4).
Our predominantly Republican Congress is our last, best
hope.

2) It's true
that Robert Kennedy had Northwoods cancelled, but any
supposition that the Bush administration would do likewise
assumes that they operate on the same moral plane. "False
flag" plans are not ordinarily declassified, but, under
Clinton's less-restrictive declassification and FOIA
policies, documents related to the Northwoods Project were
released. The National Security Archive provides the
following summary - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/
:

This document, titled "Justification for U.S. Military
Intervention in Cuba" was provided by the JCS to Secretary
of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key
component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request
from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale,
the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly
engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion
of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro
program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the
assassinations of Cubans living in the United States,
developing a fake "Communist Cuban terror campaign in the
Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,"
including "sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or
simulated)," faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian
jetliner, and concocting a "Remember the Maine" incident by
blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the
incident on Cuban sabotage.

3)
It is interesting to note that Gen. Byrnes has been told by
the Army that he is subject to further prosecution (as if
his punishment for adultery has not been enough). There is a
possibility that the motivation for this is to enforce a gag
order.

4) Niall Ferguson, a Harvard history Professor and
specialist in imperialism, addressed a Merrill Lynch
conference in Europe recently. The event was covered in the
Wall Street Journal Europe in an article, "The Big Picture:
Circa 1914 --- Historian Sees Similarities In Today's
Investment Risks And Pre-World War I
Era":

[Excerpted]

As for geopolitics, the first era of
globalization was marked by "a dominant but financially
overstretched global power, rival powers that defined
themselves only in opposition to the dominant power, new
regional powers with global aspirations, the Great Game in
Central Asia [then over access to India, now to oil], a
proliferation of `failed states' and state-sponsored armed
groups," Mr. Magnus [George Magnus, senior economic advisor
at UBS] says. Then the global power was the U.K., now the
U.S. Sound familiar?

Add in anti-Western armed
organizations -- in the 19th century, they followed the
teachings of Karl Marx, today Osama bin Laden -- and "there
is a striking resemblance between what is happening now and
what was happening 100 years ago," Prof. Ferguson says.

Of
course, any parallels go only so far and no one is saying
investors should dive under the bed. Still, in the years
preceding the First World War, investors chose to ignore the
threats that were brewing. The well-oiled global economic
and financial machine had fostered a "sense of exaggerated
security," Prof. Ferguson says. That's a valuable lesson to
remember today.

In fact, back then the mood was so
complacent that the first mention of the possibility of even
a small war the Harvard academic could find in the financial
press was an article in The London Times of July 22, 1914.
That was just seven days before the Austro-Hungarian
artillery began bombarding Belgrade and less than two weeks
before Britain declared war against Germany. Major European
financial markets closed for the rest of the
year.

"Everybody thinks the biggest financial crisis was
the [1929] Wall Street crash and its aftermath," Prof.
Ferguson says. "But 1914 was far, far worse . . . if they
had allowed the markets to reopen, there would have been a
complete wipeout."

This work is licensed under
the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/
or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th
Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Peter Hollings
phollings@alum.mit.edu

********************

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